Xbox Empire

[Imaginedvl]

Angelus said:

Honestly, my thoughts on Diablo 4, after playing the beta, is that this game is a bit overhyped. Looking around in recent months, there has been so much glowing praise in the coverage of this game, and getting to finally play it myself...it's a bit much. The game is good, don't get me wrong. It's perfectly fun to play, it looks good, the story starts off very promising (although it gets much less interesting after like the first hour, which is far stronger than the rest of act 1), and I think that the open world, and mmo aspects are well integrated into the game.

That said, Diablo 4, as of right now, doesn't appear to me to be bringing anything particularly new, or fresh to the table. It's a good solid ARPG, and it doesn't do anything particularly poorly (at least not anything that can't be addressed with a few balancing patches, bug fixes, and tweaking of the odd mechanic or two)...but there's also nothing here that's really giving me the "wow" factor. I can't point to anything they're doing with this game that would make me say "Yes! This is why I need to play Diablo, instead of the next league of PoE." I will play it, and I'm sure that I'll enjoy it for at least a couple of months or so, but then they're really gonna have to show me something in terms of how they build on the game in future seasons.

My biggest concern right now, is that it looks like the endgame is going to be all about dungeons. They're essentially taking inspiration from PoE's mapping system, by letting you take the dungeons, and making them harder and harder with up to 5 affixes that will change the dynamics of how they play. This is fine one paper, as a starting foundation for endgame, but does present some problems. For one, visually, all of the dungeons in Diablo 4 (at least in act 1) are...well...either the same flavor of dungeon, or some flavor of cave system. They say they've got 150 dungeons, but if they all blend together visually, going through them countless times is gonna get old real fucking quick. In PoE, the maps could pull from any environment in the game. Also, some of the mechanics in Diablo 4's dungeons are just fucking annoying. You'll often have to kill either every single enemy to progress through a door (very fun if you missed 1 or 2 stupid enemies in some corner), or backtrack in various directions to collect some artifact or other (which happens on slow, interruptible timers), etc. This kind of shit is just plain irritating, and you better believe it'll drive you mad once you're knee deep in the endgame, trying to farm efficiently.

I do like the world bosses as an idea, but in the beta they're supremely undercooked imo. Mechanically, it didn't offer much in terms of challenge, or anything that would foster cooperation from the players. I could easily solo it with my rogue by just staying glued to it's back legs, and dashing after it whenever it repositions. If you get a solid build going, you could easily down this thing in a small fraction of time you have available, and then, if you're so inclined, get yourself into another world instance, and kill it some more. That last part probably needs to be fixed, cus it's a bit of an exploit for massive amounts of loot, but yea...just in general would like them to design some world bosses in the future that really push the players. That would be cool.

Not too much to say about it other than that at this point. Class balance is all over the place, even within single character trees. You got stuff that's literally useless, and stuff that's hilariously OP. None of that surprises me, and I don't anticipate it will be particularly well balanced on release. I won't hold that against them too much, cus it's honestly kinda par for the course with these types of games. This will probably be like an 8/10 game at launch, with like a 6/10 endgame. Then we'll see where they go from there.

Interresting :) I have a bit a of a different perspective after playing both weekend and I agree (and disagree with some points) or at least I have a different opinion, but I can clearly see that you played it enough and have a good understanding of it (and other ARPG) :)

My take after playing everyday and levelling all chars to 25 and even farming that 35 Elite to get higher level gears and bring my AP to almost 1000 to all chars 😊

Classes: The 5 classes are different, and I like that a lot with the different mechanics.
Yes the skills are all over the places but we have no clue about so many legendary powers etc.. That’s I would not really be worried about that. Like D2, some skills really start shinning only with the right gear. I expect it to be the case here and this is pretty standard for any ARPG.

Barbarian - One thing that surprised me is how I loved the Barabarian. I never really like it in D2/D3 and was the least character I played (maybe the monk in D3). But the Barbarian in D4 feels SO good. I went with a WW build and farmed all the possible legendary power and I could even almost solo Ashava (some people joined at 20% HP).
Rogue – This fucker is so OP. This is probably the one that can ditch out the most damage at least up to 25 (melee blade fury) and I tried ranged too, was pretty fun. I played around with trap/penetrating shot build too and this was the most fun imo. But not as powerful as the melee one.
Mage – My favorite class in D3 (not really in D2) and while the class was fun to play, I really did not enjoy it as much as the 4 other classes for some reason. It was actually the most painful to get to 25 because I did not have “fun” playing her like the other classe (esp. rogue) where you have to combo/synergize with other skills way more.
Necromancer – I mean… The corpse explosion is just ridiculous 😊 You cannot ditch out the same amount of damage than a rogue but seriously, you can play the whole freaking 1 to 25 with 2 buttons… That’s not for me I think for the full game but I enjoy it for what it was.
Druid – By far the least powerful class (at least in the range of the beta) but I really like it. Played mostly Rabies with Werewolves pets and it was fun all along.

Overall the class balance is not an issue for me cause this is up to 25. That’s not even important to be honest. Level 100 will be what’s important and also, I do not really care about PVP.

Dungeons (and end game) : I liked them and esp. because for me that will be perfect for the end game. Let’s face it, other ARPG are not better and this is what a endgame should look like. Those dungeons are designed to be repeated and played over an over like POE (or rifts in D3) and I agree that the “carry” this item to “to this thing” mechanics are not good and sometime when you have to backtrack it was really annoying. So if we will have to do those dungeons like POE/D3 over and over they need to either remove that or fix it…

World Boss: I loved it 😊 That was a lot of fun, esp. when I go in the first time and died few times figuring out the rotation, skills and positioning (and like you said, behind one of his legs and a bit moving around when he does that move that brings in front arms back) but that was about it and then it was a piece of cake everytime. The idea is really fun to have randoms like that to try to get this down, obviously when we got geared like hell it was killable in 2 or 3 minutes but that will probably scale after 100 only like everything. So, no big deal for me. Being able to farm more than one kill, needs to be fixed, 100% agree.

Crafting/Gear Upgrades: That's super good for me, that's why I like ARPG, the loot and how you can min/max the stats etc. I like what they did in D4. I farmed those level 420+ items from the elite and on my barb. I have almost all items 420+ item power and my weapons are 462 and 464. The fact that you are looking for good rares instead of legendaries and then need to upgrade them (before to apply a leg affix on it or it will cost so much after that), then reroll and finally apply the right legendary affix is gold to me (using the amazing imbue system). There are a lot of options and way to increase/maximize your gears and even more opportunities to find better gear. I really like the system. The +Skill is also back. Of course this was level 25, but I can def. see myself doing that at 100 with the Sacred/Sanctified items that will drop only after level 50 and then 70 etc. and keep farming for better gear. And it will take time, unlike D3 for instance (itemization sucked, let's face it...) and D2 was better but so many useless affixes at the end or the opposite, affixes that were a MUST so basically randering them mandatory which is not a really good design. 

Overall, this was a blast for me. I’m a huge ARPG fans (Diablo, POE, etc.) and this is perfectly aligned with my expectations so far!

June cannot come sooner now.

Last edited by Imaginedvl - on 27 March 2023